Sheikh's Unlikely Desire by Sophia Lynn

gone dry.
    “If you can make him back down, you're going to want to do it,” Grant said. “We keep his cash, maybe not as much of it, but we don't get dragged down into your muck.”
    Leah flinched again. Grant had always liked her and respected her, but this seemed to have broken something about their relationship.
    “I can't,” she said. The moment the words were out of her mouth, she knew they were a lie. She knew from the way that Zayn touched her, the way his eyes let her see right down to the depths of his soul, that he would trust her. If she said they needed to back down, he would have faith that she was doing the right thing.
    “You can't make him back down?”
    “No,” Leah lied. “If I try to talk him down, he's going to pull something disastrous, and then we'll all be in my muck. You don't know him, Grant...”
    “And you do. Yeah, I can see that.” Grant's voice was sharp enough to burn, but Leah had had enough.
    “Yes, I do know him,” she said sharply. “And I'm still the same person that you gave this case to last week. Nothing has changed since you saw that picture, and nothing is different now.”
    “Now wait just a goddamn minute...”
    “No, you listen,” she snapped. “Are you taking me off the case?”
    There it was, thrown down like a leather glove for a duel. Somehow, it was the image of Zayn in her mind that gave her strength. She was his, and she knew what her duty was. He hadn't chosen her because of her looks or his appetites. He had chosen her for her strength, and now she knew that it was true beyond a shadow of a doubt.
    “What are you asking?”
    “Is this still my case or not? Simple question, Grant.”
    There was a pause, and she could feel the gears in Grant's mind turning. “You're still on it.” He said it with reluctance, but she would take it.
    “Then it's still mine to handle,” she said. “That means that I'm saying thank you for your advice, Grant, and thank you for stopping that email from getting to Bryce. However, seeing as this is my case, I will proceed as I see fit.”
    There was a long pause on the other end of the line. Leah wondered if she had pushed it too far, but there was nothing that she would take back. Either Grant and Hiller and Hiller in general had faith in her, or she should simply beat Bryce to the punch and offer her own resignation.
    Finally, Grant sighed, and she wondered if she heard a faint note of regard there. Perhaps their relationship wasn't a total loss.
    “Don't mess this up, Montgomery. You might not be the only one who takes the fall.”
    He hung up, but it was better than she was expecting. He would keep her secret at least a little longer. He wouldn't force her out.
    Leah's mind was whirring with nerves and fury. She made herself look at the pictures on her phone again. Someone had taken them intending to make something that was very dear to her dirty and polluted.
    It stung to think of someone watching them do something that was the next thing to sacred, but she made herself see those pictures for what they were. They were a moment when she had given herself to Zayn. She had offered herself to him body and soul.
    Leah was unsurprised when she saw the formal request for a hearing in front of a judge to determine the fitness of her cease and desist order. They would be in front of a judge on Monday morning, unless, of course, as the note said, she wished to withdraw her complaint?
    Leah thought about responding, but she shook her head. There were some things that were best done in person, and after all, she lived in LA. There was nothing that producers understood quite as well as theatrics.
    She stalked to her bedroom, stripping off her robe to find her most severe clothes. She was dressed entirely in black silk, her tall heels giving her a formidable martial air. She was just getting ready to walk out when something caught her eye.
    The green scarf that Zayn had used to restrain her arm the night before was thrown over the